


how do i fix you?

by softestbutch



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Episode: Revolution of the Daleks, a little rewrite of the doctor and yaz's scene in the tardis, is it sexually charged? you decide, where we finally get our thasmin hug, yaz is properly angry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 11:01:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28527405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softestbutch/pseuds/softestbutch
Summary: She wanted to push the Doctor again. She wanted to channel the anger burning in her stomach, over and over until she didn’t feel every part of her body shaking. She wanted to feel real, and she wanted to feel the Doctor.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor & Yasmin Khan, Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan
Comments: 3
Kudos: 80





	how do i fix you?

‘I thought you were dead!’

Graham and Ryan had left the TARDIS just moments ago. Yaz could still hear their footsteps getting further and further away on the concrete outside. Her voice was hoarse, and she knew full well this wasn’t the time. But she couldn’t stop herself.

‘How could you do that to us? It’s been almost a year, Doctor, how did you expect us to cope?’ 

She was shouting now. She wanted to push the Doctor again. She wanted to channel the anger burning in her stomach, over and over until she didn’t feel every part of her body shaking. She wanted to feel real, and she wanted to feel the Doctor.

‘I didn’t mean to -’ Yaz cut the Doctor off. She was looking straight at her, standing, full of potential movement she didn’t know how to dispel. Something in her wanted to make the Doctor scared. She’d been scared.

‘I spent a year back in the darkest space I’ve ever been. A whole year, and all I thought about was you. And now our friends have gone, and… and I don’t even know how to look at you.’

The Doctor considered for a second. Her vulnerability seemed to evaporate. ‘What about me? What about my time away from you? Did you ever think about me?’ The Doctor was getting fiery too. Good, Yaz thought.

‘You’re all I think about!’ she yelled. There was a silence then. The sound of shaky breathing was loud against the hum of the TARDIS.

Yaz let out a forceful breath and turned away, kicking at one of the TARDIS’ crystals as she paced.

‘Don’t do that to my TARDIS.’ The Doctor’s voice was firm from behind her.

‘I’ll do what I like!’

‘I waited for you,’ she said, after taking a moment to catch her breath. ‘There was hope. And then there was every day that passed without seeing that stupid box outside my flat and almost every atom of that hope was chipped away.’ She paused, and her voice became quieter. It remained cutting. ‘You fly away, and we’re left behind. What am I supposed to do?’

The Doctor glared at her. ‘You know it’s not my fault,’ she said levelly.

‘No! No, I don’t know that!’

It was a conversation Yaz had imagined almost every day since she’d seen the Doctor last. But the Doctor was spitting the words at her and all Yaz wanted to do was make her hurt.

It was quiet. Yaz breathed deeply, not to calm herself, but to brace herself, to nurture the growing fury inside her.

She started slightly at the unexpected noise as the Doctor prodded at some controls on the console.

‘What are you doing?’

The Doctor didn’t answer, looking down with a steely glare and flipping a lever.

‘Doctor, what are you doing?!’ Yaz grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her to turn around.

‘I’m taking the TARDIS back to the same day I left you. I’m putting things right.’ Her voice was steady, and it made Yaz furious.

‘Isn’t that messing with pre-established events?’ Yaz mocked the Doctor’s level insistence on treading softly, the one she so self-righteously reiterated every time they set foot in the past.

‘Maybe it is,’ she spat. Yaz was matching each of the Doctor’s paces as she flew the ship. ‘Maybe it’ll release a whole swarm of reapers onto the streets of Sheffield. Maybe it’ll interfere someone out of existence. But who’s gonna stop me? Those laws died with everyone else on Gallifrey.’ Something in Yaz wanted to ask about Gallifrey, and what had happened there. Most of her wanted to bury it.

‘Why are you so convinced you’re in charge of time?’

‘Because I’m the only one who can be!’ The Doctor faced her, and her fury was enough to make Yaz take a step back. ‘Because I’m the Doctor. Because I’m the authority! Because there’s no one left for me to be answerable to!’

She was pressing buttons with a fervour Yaz had never seen in her before. Something about it reminded her of herself, scribbling post-it notes and working herself into a frenzy over the Doctor’s whereabouts, over when she could finally reunite with the woman she craved.

‘I’m going to find my fam, and I’m going to go off on adventures through time and space with them because that’s what the Doctor does!’ She wasn’t stopping for breath. She pulled the lever and the machine lurched. Yaz gripped onto the console, nearly colliding with the Doctor. Nearly.

‘You can’t do this!’ Yaz called after the Doctor.

‘I can do anything.’ The Doctor’s voice was unwavering, and when the TARDIS jolted back into stillness, she was heading for the door. Yaz ran after her, and grabbed at her sleeve.

Here she was again, grabbing at the Doctor to try and stop her leaving the TARDIS.

‘Get off me, Yaz,’ the Doctor said. When their eyes met, Yaz knew they both felt the atmosphere shift. In that one look, they could both feel their difficult parting, and the time that had followed, and the burning intensity that drew them back to each other.

_‘Please.’_ It was almost a whisper.

Yaz could feel herself beginning to break.

‘Just…’ she breathed. ‘Just talk to me, Doctor.’

‘I want my fam back.’

‘I wanted you back.’

‘You got me back.’

‘Ten months too late.’

The words were fast. The Doctor and Yaz looked at each other, and took a pause.

‘Let me fix this,’ the Doctor said quietly.

Yaz felt a rush of tenderness she couldn’t deny. She was bristling with volatile emotion.

‘This isn’t how you fix it,’ she said.

‘Why can’t it be?’ The Doctor’s voice had softened. She sounded less like she was questioning Yaz, and more like she was bargaining with something external.

‘You know,’ Yaz said. ‘Rules.’

The Doctor huffed. ‘Never been my thing.’

‘Respect, then.’ The Doctor looked at her, questioning, vulnerable. ‘I mean, you’ve got to respect what Ryan and Graham chose. That’s not yours to rewrite.’

‘I want them back.’

‘I know.’

‘I want to fix them.’

‘Doctor, they’ve fixed themselves.’

‘I want…’ she was getting more emotional with every word, ‘to be needed.’

Yaz felt tears prick at her eyes. She couldn’t say it. But of course, every cell in her body was screaming  _ I need you. _

‘How long were you in jail?’ she asked slowly. The Doctor just shook her head. It felt like a warning.

‘So Jack broke you out in the end?’ she asked instead.

‘Yeah.’

‘Impressive.’

‘He had a… breakout ball.’

‘Cool.’ Yaz’s voice was cold. She knew it was silly, but she was jealous. It should have been  _ her _ who rescued the Doctor. She harboured some resentment at Jack for that, but she also saw herself in him. Or rather, she saw her future. She saw abandonment.

‘And he’s home now?’ she continued after a second.

‘Yeah. With Gwen. Old friend.’

‘Seems like everyone’s got someone.’

‘Yep.’

The silence that followed was intense. The Doctor was looking down at her shoes, hands stuffed in her pockets.

‘Come on,’ Yaz said softly, brushing the Doctor’s shoulder to lead her away from the door, ‘let’s go somewhere else. There’s no one you can fix.’

The Doctor looked up at her, and Yaz felt exposed - seen, perhaps, for the first time in almost a year. ‘What about you?’ she asked quietly. 

Her very being seemed to crack as she said the next words. ‘How do I fix you?’

That was what broke her.

Yaz let out a sob that had worked its way up her body almost instantaneously, and found that she had no energy to suppress it. It was so sudden, but she realised it had been building within her for an entire year, and she had nothing left. The Doctor ran the few paces between them and wrapped her arms around her, Yaz leaning her whole body weight into her. She’d exhausted everything.

As the Doctor cradled her, she let herself finally understand that she was real. She held her tight, feeling her double heartbeat against her body, letting the catharsis consume her entirely. The Doctor was back. And that didn’t mean things were fixed, or nothing had changed, and they definitely had a lot to work through. But she could tackle the fallout of this traumatic year with the woman she loved there to hold her. She cried loudly, unashamedly, and the Doctor was unwavering, stroking her back tenderly, grounding her. She’d survived this year. Later, she could work out what to do with it. But for now, she was holding the Doctor, and she was okay.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on twitter - @softestbutch!


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